Anna Karenina eBook

When Vronsky returned home, Anna was not yet home.
Soon after he had left, some lady, so they told him,
had come to see her, and she had gone out with her.
That she had gone out without leaving word where
she was going, that she had not yet come back, and
that all the morning she had been going about somewhere
without a word to him—­all this, together
with the strange look of excitement in her face in
the morning, and the recollection of the hostile tone
with which she had before Yashvin almost snatched
her son’s photographs out of his hands, made
him serious. He decided he absolutely must speak
openly with her. And he waited for her in her
drawing room. But Anna did not return alone,
but brought with her her old unmarried aunt, Princess
Oblonskaya. This was the lady who had come in
the morning, and with whom Anna had gone out shopping.
Anna appeared not to notice Vronsky’s worried
and inquiring expression, and began a lively account
of her morning’s shopping. He saw that
there was something working within her; in her flashing
eyes, when they rested for a moment on him, there
was an intense concentration, and in her words and
movements there was that nervous rapidity and grace
which, during the early period of their intimacy,
had so fascinated him, but which now so disturbed
and alarmed him.

The dinner was laid for four. All were gathered
together and about to go into the little dining room
when Tushkevitch made his appearance with a message
from Princess Betsy. Princess Betsy begged her
to excuse her not having come to say good-bye; she
had been indisposed, but begged Anna to come to her
between half-past six and nine o’clock.
Vronsky glanced at Anna at the precise limit of time,
so suggestive of steps having been taken that she
should meet no one; but Anna appeared not to notice
it.

“Very sorry that I can’t come just between
half-past six and nine,” she said with a faint
smile.

“The princess will be very sorry.”

“And so am I.”

“You’re going, no doubt, to hear Patti?”
said Tushkevitch.

“Patti? You suggest the idea to me.
I would go if it were possible to get a box.”

“I can get one,” Tushkevitch offered his
services.

“I should be very, very grateful to you,”
said Anna. “But won’t you dine with
us?”

Vronsky gave a hardly perceptible shrug. He
was at a complete loss to understand what Anna was
about. What had she brought the old Princess
Oblonskaya home for, what had she made Tushkevitch
stay to dinner for, and, most amazing of all, why was
she sending him for a box? Could she possibly
think in her position of going to Patti’s benefit,
where all the circle of her acquaintances would be?
He looked at her with serious eyes, but she responded
with that defiant, half-mirthful, half-desperate look,
the meaning of which he could not comprehend.
At dinner Anna was in aggressively high spirits—­she
almost flirted both with Tushkevitch and with Yashvin.